This is so depressing. COVID is the 3rd leading cause of death in Canada and is harming people’s health even with mild cases sparking new chronic conditions in people who recover. The push for us all to perceive this school year as ‘normal’ is grotesque.

What’s happening right now is not normal at all. People have not been acceptably informed of the risks to be able to consent to this charade. Our government doesn’t talk about or treat long COVID. Our government doesn’t acknowledge airborne transmission (the dominant route!).

For accurate information that you can use to keep yourself, your family, your colleagues and your communities safe, please see:
urgencyofequity.org

cleanaircrew.org

The short video below will teach you more about how to avoid a COVID infection than the government of New Brunswick, the health department, the CMOH, or the department of education has done in 2.5 years:

twitter.com/JohnSnowProjec…

And for those who prefer a written document, this short website from White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (keep reading past the Biden/Harris stuff) also gives more useful information for reducing transmissions than GNB, DoH, CMOH, or EECD have provided us or use themselves:

whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-upda…

What’s extra awful is that our elected government in New Brunswick not only declines to communicate this lifesaving and provincial-health-budget-saving information with us, but they actively prevent us from using proven evidence to protect kids in school. COVID is airborne.

Appropriate masks reduce transmissions. Masks on more people work best, because they act as source control (preventing infectious aerosols from entering the room air) as well as PPE. Ventilation and filtration in combination with appropriate masks significantly ⬇️ transmissions.

But GNB and the media are largely content to pretend there is no reason why one would want to reduce transmissions. The framing is often that the interventions - the protections - are the problem rather than the virus itself and what it does to people; how easily it spreads.

Cases beget cases.

Cases are how you get:
-Staff shortages
-Disruptions
-Unsafe ratios in schools and hospitals
-Hospitalized people, costing $200k/day in NB for COVID hospitalizations
-Long COVID, which occurs in kids too.

It is very much worth it to decrease transmissions.

We decrease transmissions by wearing good masks while sharing air with others indoors. Testing negative to exit isolation. Staying home when sick, for duration of +ve rapid tests. Cleaning the air. Being up to date on vaccines.